සන්ෆ්ලවර්
11 songs performed
Sunflowers (also styled Sunflower) is a Sri Lankan pop and live-show band formed in the early 1980s and led by Neil Warnakulasooriya. The group built its name on the stage-band tradition, mixing original Sinhala pop, baila, and crowd-pleasing nonstop medleys, and its early recordings still circulate widely among Sri Lankan listeners and the diaspora.
Sunflower played its first show on 4 September 1983 in Dankotuwa. By several accounts the band’s name was suggested by the pioneering guitarist and bandleader Clarence Wijewardena, a central figure in the Sri Lankan pop-band movement that Sunflower grew out of. The original line-up gathered around Neil Warnakulasooriya and included Nelson Vas, Ivor de Mel, Erny Peiris, Christopher Liyanage, Lushan Alahakoon, and Athula Adhikari.
Like the leading stage bands of its era, Sunflower worked the live circuit with a broad set: original Sinhala numbers, baila, instrumental pieces, and the long nonstop medleys that defined Sri Lankan band shows. The group recorded for the Torana label and has carried on through many membership changes across four decades, with later shows often fronting guest vocalists.
The band is closely associated with Neil Warnakulasooriya, also credited as Neel Warnakulasuriya, whose own catalogue overlaps with the Sunflower years. His work is documented on his artist page on Lyrics-lk.
Among the Sunflower recordings featured on Lyrics-lk, “Weri Mata Hodatama Weri” remains one of the most recognised, and the band’s lighter, story-driven songs sit alongside it.
More than forty years after its first Dankotuwa show, the Sunflowers band remains active on the Sri Lankan show circuit, and its early Sinhala recordings continue to find new listeners online. For each song, Lyrics-lk presents the lyrics in Sinhala script with transliteration in English (Singlish) and an English translation, so listeners abroad can follow the words and their meaning.
Every Sinhala lyric, composition, and song credit by Sunflowers.